PMS International Incense Sticks Assorted Aromas

Unbranded pack picked up from a local market stall for £1.20. These are imported by PMS International, a large UK importer and distributor of a range of goods, founded in 1970. This is in the current trend for colourful sticks which are cheaply dipped in perfume which soon fades, leaving just the basic aroma of the materials used to make the blank (unperfumed) stick. These have the herby dried cow pat aroma I associate with Tibetan and Thailand incense, though may also be present in some Indian incense cones if used for cheap perfume dipping.

There are six different scents - each packed into the increasingly commonly seen square box holding six to ten sticks; in this case it's eight sticks - all thinly though tightly handrolled onto a plain bamboo stick. The colouring may be a dye or may be a coloured powder. The perfume on the sticks is sweet but very light. The faint scent may be due to budget restraint or simply that the perfume has faded. I find it not uncommon in many of the perfume dipped incense which are not branded by an Indian company, that the perfume can fade, leaving just the herby aroma of the base material.

The scents are Lemon, Cinnamon, Vanilla, Rose, Jasmine, and Lavender. Each one does have a mild suggestion of the named scent, such as the Lemon does occasionally have the faint whiff of a lemon-drop sweet, but essentially each stick has the herby aroma of the base material, and there is little to differentiate them other than by the colour of the stick.

Perfume: June 2014    Score: 20

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Perfume-Dipped Incense